East
Boston Red Sox
Before David Price went down
with an elbow injury, the Red Sox were the overwhelming favorites in the
division. Now that he has, they are merely the comfortable favorites. If and
when Price does return, Boston will have two Cy Young winners as well as a
five-time All-Star (who probably should have one by now) leading their
rotation, as well as a back end that’s far from disastrous and an above-average
pen headed by Craig Kimbrel. There is zero question that the Sox are set on the
pitching front.
Behind the mound is a similar
story: a former MVP at second, an All-Star at short, a top-two prospect in
baseball who hit .295/.359/.476 in his first 34 MLB games in left, another
All-Star in center, last year’s MVP runner-up in right, and an aged but still
powerful former batting title winner at designated hitter. The corners could
use some work, and catcher is untrustworthy, but few teams have such a
collection of star players in their lineup. By wRC+ (an advanced statistic
where 100 is a major league average offensive performance), nobody was better
offensively. The Red Sox are coming for the pennant, and there aren’t many out
there who can stop them.
Toronto Blue Jays
There might not be a more
wide-open race for second place in a division (and likely a Wild Card spot) in
the rest of the majors than in the AL East. The West should be tight as well,
but only the East is projected to have all five of its teams finish .500 or
better by FanGraphs.
The presumptive leaders in this
race for second, the Toronto Blue Jays, are a little weaker after having to
replace Edwin Encarnacion with Kendrys Morales, and Michael Saunders with an
unholy pairing of Ezequiel Carrera and Melvin Upton, Jr. (which may grow to an
unholy triplet, as Toronto reportedly has
interest in Angel Pagan).And, of course, Justin Smoak is still there too,
flailing at whatever he finds enticing. Add in aging by Russell Martin and Jose
Bautista, and this lineup is far from the weaponized force that was the 2015
iteration.
However, that’s a crazy bar to
compare any group to, and the 2017 form is still far from dilapidated. Any team
with Josh Donaldson has one of the best starting points in the game, a
certified masher all but guaranteed to put up crazy numbers to compliment Gold
Glove-level defense. Even if Devon Travis cannot rediscover the fairly average
plate discipline he exhibited two years ago, he’ll be a solid contributor with
his bat. Jose Bautista looks to be declining but remains a dangerous hitter.
Troy Tulowitzki and Russell Martin have lost a bit as well but are nothing
resembling liabilities at the plate. And while I would never take Morales over
his predecessor, he’s anything but anemic. The top half of the lineup is
intimidating.
Of course, the reason the Jays
did so well last season was that they had really strong starting pitching to go
with the bats. Aaron Sanchez took a major leap in particular, striking out
opposing hitters at the rate he did in the minors and almost walking fewer than
he ever had after reconverting to a starter. Continuing to suppress home runs
like he always had before, Sanchez took home the American League ERA title and
established himself as a top-of-the-rotation starter.
He’s backed by the resurgent
veteran J.A. Happ, the fiery 25-year-old righty Marcus Stroman, and the
home-run-prone but effective Marco Estrada, all of whom being reliable arms,
even if they aren’t stars like what exists in the Boston rotation. If the Blue
Jays can get a full season of quality pitching out of Francisco Liriano – which
is seldom ever a safe bet – they won’t have to make many mid-season moves to
shore up their pitching. I doubt they have enough to catch the Red Sox, but
they are far from long shots to once again make the postseason.
Baltimore Orioles
The O’s have been one of the
most consistent teams in the American League since 2012, going 444-366 (.548)
over those five years and never having a sub-.500 season. They only have one
division title and one ALCS berth to show for it, however, thanks to a
nightmarish division, the Royals, and most recently and infamously, baffling bullpen management in an elimination game.
Fortunately for Baltimore,
their roster isn’t very different from what it was last year. Unfortunately for
them, what it was last year was good, but probably not as good as its 89-73
record (their Pythagorean record was
84-78), and it’s still in the gauntlet that is the AL East.
Here’s what we know for sure
about the team going into 2017: Manny Machado will rake. And when he’s not
raking, he’ll inhale grounders (and the hopes of opposing hitters in the
process). Few teams will have worse outfield defense, if any of them do. The dingers
will be many. Zach Britton and the other O's relievers will do really well. Kevin Gausman will
likely pitch solidly. And the rest of the roster should be adequate at least.
Again, that’s a good baseball
team. In the East though, it’s a matter of taste, and I think this good
baseball team is just slightly inferior to a couple of other good baseball
teams within the division – like the next one.
New York Yankees
The Yankees haven’t scored a
run in a postseason game since 2012. It’s been a beautiful reprieve from watching
the Pinstripers steamroll everyone else (even though in reality, they’ve never
been actually bad), but the popular opinion around the game seems to be that
they are on their way back to the top of baseball. Their farm system is widely
considered one of the game’s best, if not the best, period; and some early
graduates have already begun making noise at the major league level.
Catcher Gary Sanchez is the
most well-known of the bunch after posting a 1.032 OPS and making a late run at
Rookie of the Year last season, but the list of the “Baby Bombers” (to borrow
from John Sterling) only begins there. Greg Bird impressed in
his debut 2015 season, slashing .261/.343/.529 with 11 homers in 46 games, but
missed all of 2016 with a shoulder injury. Apparently fully healed, Bird has
proceeded to tear apart Spring Training
pitching as if it was nothing. He is the Yanks’ Opening Day first baseman. The
new right fielder is another 24-year-old with ridiculous power,
towering Aaron Judge. Judge has a serious strikeout problem, something he’s worked at improving this
winter and spring, but there are few hitters alive with more raw power. If he
can trim his K-rate significantly, New York has a fearsome cleanup hitter. If
he can stay healthy, fellow slugger Tyler Austin may soon join Judge in the
outfield sometime this year; the long-haired Clint Frazier may do so as well.
And that’s not even mentioning
the guys who are expected to make their way to the Bronx in the next few years,
like Glebyer Torres, Blake Rutherford, and Jorge Mateo. There’s almost an
excess of young talent that is either major league ready or not too far away
from it.
In the short term, the Yankees
should contend for a Wild Card spot, but they are still way too far behind
their rivals in Boston to worry about a division title. While I would bet good
money on All-Star-quality seasons out of Sanchez and Bird, they don’t have many
hitters who are major threats. Judge is still a bit raw. Jacoby Ellsbury, Brett
Gardner, and Chase Headley are still decent players, but all either are 33 or
will turn 33 this season. The rotation and bullpen each have two solid arms at
the top, followed by underwhelming or downright mediocre depth. There are just
too many “mehs” to be found for me to have full confidence in them yet.
Tampa Bay Rays
After years as one of the
majors’ model franchises, the Rays have fallen a fair bit recently, finishing
below .500 for three straight seasons, including a 68-win campaign in 2017.
Their Pythagorean record made them look a little better, but it was still
easily the lowest mark the team has seen since the Devil Rays years.
I’m still kind of wondering
how. This is not a terrible ball club at all. Let’s look at the Rays’ pitching,
which finished 15th in the majors in ERA. Why wasn’t it as good as
it stereotypically is?
The thing is, they allowed too
many home runs – the fifth-most per nine innings of anyone in the majors. It
appears to be the result of an organizational strategy
to pitch up in the zone to generate more whiffs (they finished 10th
in strikeout rate) and pop-ups (10th in infield fly rate). While the
fly balls they’ve allowed weren’t leaving the park more often than the average
team, there have certainly been more flies: since 2014, no team has allowed a
greater fly ball rate.
It’s certainly an interesting
idea, but it’s easy to see how it may burn them. Has it though? Not really: as
mentioned before, it looks like they’re getting outs and keeping runs off the
board. And before you say that the team ERA is kept that low by Tropicana
Field, the team xFIP (15th) and SIERA (13th) are here to
tell you that just isn’t the case. If the trend of more batters trying uppercut
swings continues, making more hitters susceptible to missing the high fastball,
Tampa may strike out so many guys that their pitching is among the league’s
best. (At least in the rotation. The bullpen looks iffy after Alex Colome and
Xavier Cedeno at the moment.)
How about the other half of the
team? By wRC+, the Rays’ bats were tied for 12th. So not bad at all,
once you account for the Trop. Defensively, they don’t look terrible either,
going by Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating – that is, until you
remember they have a defensive god in center field in the form of Kevin
Kiermaier. Filter him out, and the Rays are tied for 21st and alone
in 25th in those metrics, respectively. It’s certainly unfair to act
like they suddenly don’t have maybe the game’s best defensive player wandering
the outfield for them, but it does illustrate that they do have a significant
flaw as a team. Kiermaier can’t defend everything.
The good news is they seem to
have tried to remedy those fielding issues by moving Brad Miller to second base
and signing Colby Rasmus to play left.
With a healthy roster and a few
lucky bounces, the Rays – no joke – have a strong chance at a postseason berth.
Central
Cleveland Indians
When fully healthy, the Indians
have a better all-around (rotation and bullpen) pitching staff than anyone else
in the American League. They led baseball in bWAR and were seventh in fWAR
(third in the AL) last season, and they undoubtedly would have been better if
Carlos Carrasco and Danny Salazar hadn’t hit the Disabled List late in the
season.
The Tribe has one of the
league’s most formidable bullpens. Obviously, the headliner is fireman Andrew
Miller, but the rest of the group is strong too. Cody Allen continued what’s
been a career of dominance in 2016, posting a 2.51 ERA (his fourth consecutive
year below 3.00) and 3.08 xFIP. Bryan Shaw was hardly a relief ace, but he was
a solid contributor as well, especially against righties, who couldn’t even
scratch a .290 OBP against him. The arrival of lefty strikeout artist Boone
Logan should make this group even better. But there’s one yet unmentioned
pitcher who deserves special attention.
Astoundingly, Dan Otero
completely reversed his fortunes from his previous season in Oakland, inducing
more ground balls than he ever had since his rookie season in San Francisco and
holding opposing batters to an absurd .209/.241/.285 line with a minimal
platoon split – meaning he was just as effective getting lefties out as he was
righties. His opposing isolated slugging (slugging percentage minus batting
average) was actually less than half that
of Miller’s. How did he do this?
The secret lies in the way he
pitched, especially with his four-seam fastball. It’s never been used as a
primary pitch in Otero’s career, and that remained the case in 2016: the sinker
was far and away his favorite, being thrown 54.3 percent of the time. However,
that’s the second-lowest rate of his career and the lowest since 2013. The gap
in usage can be explained by the rise in Otero’s four-seamer selection, as for
the first time since his second season, Otero threw it over 20 percent of the
time, and in fact almost a quarter of the time. He didn’t add on any break or
velocity to the pitch, which is why he still isn’t a strikeout pitcher, but
what he did was lower it.
Here’s the heatmap of
Otero’s fastball during his Oakland years. Including balls, 43.4 percent of his
pitches were above the middle third; 18.7 percent are below it. That’s a really
odd choice. As discussed earlier, a team like the Rays can get away with that
because they generate lots of strikeouts. Otero doesn’t though. This approach
didn’t prevent him from creating grounders, and at his best, it didn’t prevent
him from being an effective pitcher. But it meant that opposing hitters seldom
swung and missed, and when they made contact (as was often the case), they put it in the air.
That’s what killed his 2015 season especially, as his fly ball rate on
fastballs ballooned to 52.9 percent, resulting in more extra base hits.
Here’s Otero’s 2016 fastball heatmap. It’s entirely different. 37.6 percent are above the middle
third of the zone; 27.9 percent are below it. As you would definitely expect,
that produced a 43.5 percent ground ball rate on four-seamers compared to a
career-low 13 percent fly ball rate. As a result, instead of hitting for a 120
or 124 wRC+ on that pitch, opposing batters hit for a 51 wRC+ against Otero’s
measly, 90-mile-per-hour heater. That’s a dramatic change, and his adjustment
to pitching down in the zone is why he became one of the top relievers in all
of baseball.
As for the rest of the reigning
American League champions: there’s a reason other than pitching that they’re
the reigning American League champions.
Francisco Lindor is one of the
finest players in all of baseball, with a stellar glove and an almost equally
stellar bat. He might turn in a season strong enough convince writers to name a
primarily contact hitter AL MVP for the first time since Dustin Pedroia in
2008. There’s reason to doubt whether Michael Brantley will return to the great
player he was before missing all but 11 games of last year to injury, but if
not, Brandon Guyer is one of the better backup plans in the game. If Jose
Ramirez can even threaten to repeat his breakout season, opposing pitchers will
shake in fear. Jason Kipnis and Carlos Santana are offensive forces in their
own right. Oh, and there’s this Encarnacion guy at DH now. This team will rake,
and they will clinch the Central by mid-September.
Detroit Tigers
The Tigers were just above
average last season, finishing 12th in both position player and
pitcher fWAR, which put them into the postseason hunt but ultimately left them
three games short.
This year’s roster looks about
as underwhelming, if not a little more so. The lineup loses Cameron Maybin from
center and replaces him with either Mikie Mahtook or Tyler Collins, who are
bad, or JaCoby Jones, who has played 13 MLB games and hit just .243/.309/.356
in half a year at AAA. That’s not ideal, especially considering how dreadful
Detroit’s outfield defense already looks otherwise.
Meanwhile, the front office has
addressed the seventh-worst relief ERA in baseball by, let’s see… oh, right,
doing absolutely nothing other than moving Anibal Sanchez there from the
rotation. I’m sure that’ll turn out fine.
The Tigers have their share of
big-name players, like Justin Verlander, Miguel Cabrera, and Ian Kinsler, who
are all obviously great, but the few changes to this roster were pretty much
all negative, including all the veterans on the team getting a year older.
They’re a respectable club, but no more.
Kansas City Royals
After two pennant-winning years
of defying logic, the Royals fell to earth in 2016. This year’s Royals lose to
other teams their most valuable player from the year before, Jarrod Dyson (3.1
fWAR, 3.1 bWAR); their most dangerous hitter from the year before, Kendrys
Morales (.263/.327/.468, 30 home runs); and arguably their best reliever when
healthy, Wade Davis (1.18 ERA, 2.76 xFIP since 2014) – and to tragedy one of
its finest pitchers and biggest stars, Yordano Ventura.
(As was the case with the
Marlins and Jose Fernandez in Thursday’s National League preview, I will not
try to write on the Royals and Ventura in a context beyond baseball. I do not
feel good about doing so, but I also do not think I am capable of doing more.
I will that Major League
Baseball has to better teach its players from the Caribbean how to drive
safely. I don’t know if there exists any evidence Ventura died to any negligent
or dangerous operation of his car, but there have been too many deaths
involving young players who went back to their home countries over the
offseason and were involved in accidents on the road. MLB has to do something
about this.)
This is a significantly worse
team than before. It’s conceivable, if the Twins or White Sox are further ahead
of schedule than they are thought to be, that Kansas City could fall to fourth
place in the AL Central. I won’t so far as to say that will happen, but when
FanGraphs projects four positions to produce less than 1.0 win above
replacement, I cannot imagine at all that the Royals can make the playoffs.
Chicago White Sox
While the “W” is flying on the
North Side of Chicago, a different one
is up on the other. The White Sox were not going to contend in 2017, so they
took the prudent approach this winter, selling their two best players for top
prospects. It’s probably a bit frustrating for some Sox fans to see their team
descend further into the gutter, but at least it’s a direction. Plus, it’s hard
to take too much issue with the strategy when five of the organization’s top
eight prospects according to MLB.com, including the top four, came in the Chris
Sale and Adam Eaton trades. Infielder Yoan Moncada (one of baseball’s two best
prospects overall) and Lucas Giolito (one of its best pitching prospects) are
so close to the major league roster that a turnaround might have not only been
made greater, but quicker as well.
But again: in the interim, that
does not matter. Chicago is a dreadful team, setting aside a handful of players
they didn’t trade but in many cases probably should have. When Avisail Garcia
is not your worst starting outfielder, you have a severe problem. I don’t think
very much more needs to be said after that; you probably get the picture. The
White Sox will be good later, but they are anything but that right now.
Minnesota Twins
The Twins are entering their
third year in a row of seeing if their young prospects can in fact perform at
the major league level. It’s not very fun at this point, especially since they
only won a post-relocation-worst 59 games last season.
But I’m trying to have some
hope for the future with this new front office (which has taken a patient
approach in its first few months in charge), so let’s examine the young players
who have made the big league roster since 2015, and I’ll give my level of
optimism for their futures.
J.T. Chargois debuted last
season showing heat not seen from Twins pitchers in some time, averaging 96.6
miles per hour with his four-seam fastball and 95.8 with his two-seamer. Despite
dominating minor league hitters over the past two years, though, the Rice
almumnus struggled with the strike zone in his first 23 big league innings,
striking out fewer and walking more batters. The jury is still very much out on
Chargois, who begins 2016 at AAA Rochester.
Adalberto Mejia came to the
Twins in the Eduardo Nuñez trade and pitched 2.1 innings after the deal. His
minor league numbers are encouraging, but talent evaluators project him as a
mid-rotation starter at best. If he lives up to that, that will be a whole lot
better than a lot of Twins pitchers over the past few seasons, so I will
definitely take it. Mejia starts the season as the fifth starter.
Jose Berrios, the top pitching
prospect in the system for years, was as impressive as possible in the minors,
making use of his great stuff
and mowing down opposing hitters. Debuting last April (in front of this
author), however, Berrios hasn’t shown any of that. He kept striking out the
opposition, but not as much; he walked everything; and big league hitters
walloped him. His ERA after 58.1 major league innings: 8.02. That doesn’t
instill confidence, but I’d be a fool to write him off at this point in his
career.
Eddie Rosario is a corner
outfielder who is as athletic as they come, often showing off a cannon of an arm, good
skills on the basepaths (despite not racking up many steals), and some power. The
problem is that Rosario has problems making contact. Well, you may say, some of
the best hitters in the game have problems making contact; and that’s true. The
other problem is that Rosario doesn’t know how to lay off pitches. This
combination has meant a 3.3 percent walk rate and a 25.2 percent strikeout rate
for his career, resulting in a .268/.292/.443 slash line. He needs a crazily high
BABIP to keep up any level of productivity, and while his has been higher than
normal, it’s far from enough to make him a good major leaguer. 2017 is the year
in which he has to show some semblance of on-base skills, or he doesn’t have a
future.
Max Kepler, born in Germany to
American expats and another outfielder, is much more encouraging than Rosario.
In 2015, he destroyed AA pitching to the tune of a .322/.416/.531 line and more
walks than strikeouts, warranting a permanent call-up to Minnesota after
starting the next season at Rochester. His rookie season was okay, at times
inspiring awe as he slugged .571 in July before hitting three homers in one
game against the Indians in August. He petered out over the last month
though, and while his range
and arm can be
extraordinary, defensive metrics don’t like him because of some errors after
getting to the ball. I’m encouraged but wary.
Miguel Sano has some of the most incredible power in the game. He
also has always shown great plate discipline, swinging at roughly 5 percent
fewer pitches out of the strike zone than the average batter since his debut in
2015. The reasons he isn’t already winning Silver Sluggers every year are the strikeouts.
They are many. In 196 career MLB games, Sano has struck out 297 times, or in
35.8 percent of his plate appearances. That’s peak Mark Reynolds territory,
which is not what you want to say about a former top-10 prospect in all of
baseball. Sano’s defense varies greatly, looking rangy about as often as
he looks inept. Everything about his game can be frustrating. I don’t
have much doubt that Sano will have a decent career, but I really think that this season will tell us if that career will be as a star slugger or the new
Reynolds. Here’s hoping for something closer to the former.
Byron Buxton, formerly considered
by many to be the top prospect in any organization, is seemingly the world’s most
popular breakout pick after reviving his
old swing and hitting .238/.315/.497 during the second half. That’s not a
typical line for a player with 80-grade speed and strong defensive chops, but
after watching Buxton struggle through his rookie campaign and the first
portion of his second, other Twins fans and I surely would take any kind of
productive hitter out of him, especially since with his other tools, he can be
an All-Star-level player. It’s vital for him to develop a modicum of contact
skills, however, because his strikeout rate has been far too high since his
debut. I feel best about Buxton, however, compared to any of these other players.
Other prospects are on the way,
but immediately, that doesn’t change things much. The position player group is closer
to adequate than one might think, but the pitching is a mess. The Twins will
miss the playoffs this season even if their youth takes the next step, and they’re
likely to miss them again in 2018. Hopefully they at least make futility
interesting.
West
Texas Rangers
I’ll just get this out of the
way: the 2016 Rangers were not even close to the best team in the American
League, and they very possibly weren’t the best team in the West. They
dramatically outperformed all the metrics that said that they were much closer
to .500 in terms of ability than their 95-67 record ended up being. This has
been gone over many, many, many times,
and it would be a waste of time to add another edition of that discussion to
the pile.
So, the 2017 Rangers: they are
also not best team in the American League, and I’m very confident in saying
they aren’t the best team in the West. But they are not bad. Let’s talk about
how they are not bad.
The first way in which the
Rangers are not bad: Yu Darvish. Yu Darvish is among the ace-iest aces in the
game, with an arsenal of total
filth. It’s unfortunate for Rangers fans that this is Darvish’s contract
year, because he is a treat to watch, and with some of the other players set to
enter free agency, it seems like it will be difficult to hold onto him. Of
course, Cole Hamels is a great starter as well.
While the Rangers’ bullpen was
one of the worst in the game for much of 2016’s first half, it was one of the
majors’ 10 best. Tony Barnette, Matt Bush, Alex Claudio, and Sam Dyson all
finished with sub-3.00 ERAs and peripherals to suggest that wasn’t a fluke.
Jake Diekman wasn’t as good as those four, and he’ll start the season on the 60-Day
Disabled List, but when healthy, he is quite reliable in his own right. Claudio
should handle things against lefties just fine while he’s gone.
You know who’s unbelievable?
Adrian Beltre. Few players visibly enjoy themselves the way he does, and few
hit and field so well the way he does. He is inarguably a Hall of Famer. He
might end up the best Ranger of all-time not named Ivan Rodriguez. It’s a
pleasure to see him continue to play baseball.
There are talented players elsewhere,
like Jonathan Lucroy, who is still a top-five catcher around, or Rougned Odor,
who is one of the best hitting second basemen you can find. But now it’s time
to talk about why the Rangers won’t win the AL West again, other than their ridiculous
record in one-run games last season.
Who is playing left field,
exactly? Delino DeShields is an okay hitter, a superb runner, and an improving
defender, but he’s hardly worthy of a starting spot on a team that wants to
compete for the division. Jurickson Profar has a total of 12 starts in the
outfield, and his bat looks less impressive the more time he spends at the
major league level. It will not hold up when compared to other corner
outfielders. Ryan Rua’s talent is that of the textbook fourth outfielder; he’s
no starter. And Shin-Soo Choo is penciled in as the Opening Day DH for a
reason. His days as a regular outfielder are well over.
There are holes that can be
poked in a few players elsewhere, as well. Rougned Odor is an abominable
fielder. While he’s not in the ground yet, Mike Napoli’s offensive value has
been slipping overall since 2013. Nomar Mazara should be a fantastic major
leaguer, but in the short term, he hasn’t put together a full season of even average
play, having regressed considerably after a hot start last year. Whether Joey
Gallo’s ridiculous strikeout rate can play in the bigs is still an unknown at
this point, and what we do know suggests it cannot.
The team overall just didn’t
produce much above the major league average last year: a 98 team wRC+ tied for
12th, and a +1.6 UZR/150 placed 11th. They weren’t
exceptional at the plate or in the field.
And most alarmingly: there’s
pretty much nothing in the way of rotation depth after Darvish and Hamels.
Martin Perez is serviceable, but after that, it’s Andrew Cashner, A.J. Griffin,
Tyson Ross, and a bunch of spares. If somebody hits the DL – which will almost
certainly happen just because starting pitchers get injured all the time – there
are so few good options to plug that hole. The last thing Texas wants is to
give Nick Martinez more starts.
A team this average can’t
expect to go as far as it did last year two years in a row. The Rangers have
are well within reach of the Wild Card, but no more.
Seattle Mariners
Seattle was home to one of
baseball’s best offenses in 2016, as the Mariners hit .259/.326/.430 with the
second-best wRC+ and third-best home run total. It’s fair to expect some
regression on the roster (I’ll wait before declaring Mike Zunino a perennial
threat to slug .470); however, it’s true that some of the AL’s most fearsome
hitters reside in this lineup. Robinson Cano, Kyle Seager, and Nelson Cruz
combined for 112 of the team’s 223 dingers, and they’re still here.
New are Jean Segura and Jarrod
Dyson, brought in from Arizona and Kansas City to play shortstop and left field,
respectively. The two are definite upgrades over their predecessors, each
possessing some of the game’s best baserunning skills and at least the
capability to play great defense. Dyson in particular has been a consistent star
with the glove as a center fielder. If the two continue to hit well, they will
be quite valuable.
Of course, the M’s don’t really
need much assistance on the position player end. The defensive reinforcements
should ease their pitchers’ pain, but even based on fielding-independent
numbers, Mariners starters were lacking, which is why it’s so important that
Felix Hernandez become
at least a good starter again. If Seattle wants to play into October, they
need improvement from their pitchers.
They’re not far from making it into
the postseason already though.
Houston Astros
There’s no question the Astros
have the hitting. Jose Altuve is coming off a batting title-winning season in
which he posted career-high power numbers and a career-low grounder rate, but
still kept his strikeout rate below 10 percent – unheard of in today’s game. Carlos
Correa and George Springer are two of the best young players in the game,
posting nearly identical lines that were both well above league average in
2016. After showing competence at worst in his first 49 games at the MLB level
last season, 23-year-old Alex Bregman is expected by many to join them at the
top of the Houston lineup.
Whatever Evan Gattis, Yulieski
Gurriel, Brian McCann, and Carlos Beltran lack in youth, they certainly make
for in pop. Even at the bottom of their order, the Astros have an asset; few
teams can say they have as reliably average a hitter as Nori Aoki likely to hit
ninth in their lineup: Aoki’s wRC+ has finished between 102 and 113 in each of
his five seasons since coming to America. These guys are ready to mash.
There’s no question the Astros
have the bullpen. Houston relievers were some of the very best in baseball last
year, with a slew of pitchers posting absurd fielding-independent metrics. Michael
Feliz, Ken Giles, Luke Gregerson, and Will Harris averaged 63 innings between
them, and none of them posted an xFIP or SIERA above 2.90. (A necessary caveat:
Feliz and Giles each had ERAs below the MLB average.) Chris Devinski was
dominant over 108.1 innings, allowing 1.66 BB/9 IP and 0.33 HR/9 IP on the way to
a 2.16 ERA. All five return.
There’s no real guarantee the
Astros have the starters. The young Lance McCullers looks ready to top a number
of major league rotations (if he can keep the walks down). After that though,
things look less sure. Dallas Keuchel and Collin McHugh still look adequate, but
there’s legitimate reason for concern, especially with Keuchel, whose
performance took a serious hit after winning the Cy Young in 2015. Mike Fiers,
Charlie Morton, and Joe Musgrove don’t really inspire a ton of confidence
either. None of those pitchers are outright bad, but a mediocre rotation may
require overworking the Houston pen or asking the bats to bail them out of some
shootouts against better teams.
Perhaps it’s unnecessary to
worry that one aspect of the Astros is merely passable instead of fantastic
though. They aren’t in a hole, and they have prospects with which to buy an arm
at the deadline if needed. I don’t think any of the other teams in the West can
claim such a good roster. Houston should win the division, even if it’s
somewhat uncomfortably done.
Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Sometime in the past couple
years, the question about Mike Trout shifted from “How does this kind of start
compare to those of Mickey Mantle, Ted Williams, and Ty Cobb?” to “How likely
is it that he joins them as one of the game’s all-time greats?”
Trout is by far the best player
alive, and at 25, he’s begun passing Hall of Famers in the career WAR
leaderboards, accumulating All-Star selections, Silver Sluggers, and now a
plurality of MVPs along the way. If his typical production was halved over the
next three years of his career, he would be a worthy Hall of Famer himself
before his 29th birthday. Hyperbole is nearly impossible with this guy.
He’s that good.
The rest of the Angels... well,
they’re not as bad as they used to be. They spent the offseason making a
handful of smartly conservative moves to improve the roster incrementally, like
getting Danny Espinosa to replace Johnny Giavotella, signing Jesse Chavez to
fill out the rotation, or getting literally anybody above replacement level to
play catcher instead of Carlos Perez and Jett Bandy.
Underlying metrics suggest the
Angels weren’t actually that bad last year, finishing ninth in wRC+ and 10th
in overall defensive value (FanGraphs’ Def). The pitching is suspect,
especially in the bullpen. If the second half of that sentence especially feels
evergreen for this club, it’s because it is; since 2010, the Angels’ relievers
have finished better than 17th in fWAR just once, compared to four
seasons spent in the bottom five. You would think the front office would try
better to address that, but evidently not.
Overall: I don’t expect a
playoff berth for the Angels, but in a muddled middle of the AL, it’s not
inconceivable they sneak into a Wild Card spot.
Oakland Athletics
There aren’t a lot of extreme
things you can say about the 2017 Athletics. They lack really anything that
evokes a “wow,” aside possibly from Khris Davis’ power. They
aren’t ancient as a roster, but they’re far from a collection of highly-touted
youngsters either. Their pitching isn’t expected to be good by any stretch of
the imagination, but it’s not at all as bad as the Padres’ or Reds’. Their
offense is bad, but it’s not anemic. For the most part, the Athletics are the
embodiment of “meh.”
Except, that is, in one very
big way in one particular area. The Oakland defense was shockingly
bad in 2016. By Defensive Efficiency and Revised Zone Rating, they were
below average. By Ultimate Zone Rating, nobody was worse. By Defensive Runs
Saved (both FanGraphs’ and Baseball Info Solutions’), nobody was worse, and
they were almost as bad as the Cubs were good. When only five teams saw more
balls hit into play, that meant bad things. Despite being fairly respectable
according to fielding-independent metrics, Oakland tied for the sixth-highest
team ERA in baseball.
Little has been done to address
the team’s defense. In fact, it looks like it actually got worse with the
acquisitions of Rajai Davis and Matt Joyce to play center and right field.
Again-returning utility man (and apparent
Three-True-Outcomes slugger) Adam Rosales should help things in the
infield, but “helping things” is well short of what the A’s need.
Still: as said before, this
isn’t a disaster of a team otherwise. It’s not like they’re a tire fire or
anything, but the A’s almost certainly aren’t postseason material.
Tomorrow is Opening Day, so playoff and award predictions will be up in the morning.
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